Not all rainbows and unicorns! (Warning Graphic Pics)

There are some truths that when breeding snakes you must come to grips with.

1. Not every pair will breed
2. Not every breeding will produce eggs
3. Not every egg will be fertile
4. Not every good egg with hatch
5. Not every baby will will live
6. Not every baby will sell

With that beings said we bred a Super Pastel x Super pastel. We got 7 eggs, 3 went bad in incubation, that left us with 4 good eggs and as you will see it's not all rainbows. If you're not prepared to deal with this kind of issues you might just stick with them as pets.

Here are the surviving Super Pastels
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...psu2rehnfo.jpg

As you can see the one baby on the right is kinked and its head is smaller than a #2 pencil
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...psc8hu2ulb.jpg

Here's it head.. really upset. I clipped these and everything looked good to go but as you can see when it crawled out its a big ole mess.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...psmoipddlk.jpg

Oh man, while it sucks that this happens, its good that this is brought into the light for people who have not breed and were planning on it. Typically what happens with fellows like this? Do they pass away? Are they humanely euthanized?

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Originally Posted by Rikoku

Oh man, while it sucks that this happens, its good that this is brought into the light for people who have not breed and were planning on it. Typically what happens with fellows like this? Do they pass away? Are they humanely euthanized?

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If I catch them before the really crawl out then I will euthanize the animal but most of them never even crawl out of the egg. We get about 200-300 babies a year and theres normally at least 3-4 babies that are total disasters and have to be put down.

That sucks. Any idea of possible causes or just "act of God"?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

That sucks. Any idea of possible causes or just "act of God"?

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Egg stress early in the incubation would be my guess. The mom laid the eggs and I was out of town so she laid on them for almost a week prior to me pulling them.

I wish people could see the risk of things like this with all animals. It's not just snakes - it's kittens and puppies that are born deformed, and unable to either survive at all or live a quality life if they do. It's foals that people don't get the dam vet-checked, and don't discover until she's giving birth that there are twins... mares aren't designed to bear twins, unlike cattle and deer, and as a result the results can be pretty bad. It's people that don't check into what should be bred together, and what shouldn't - such as merle dogs. They should never be bred to other merles. The results can be puppies that are deaf, blind, completely lacking eyes...

No matter what kind of animal it is - including human! - the results can be very sad. It is most certainly not all rainbows and unicorns.

That sucks, though it is also part of breeding.

Thanks for showing it so that people can see the risks